This column is my first step toward recovering from a maddening return experience.

Share this story

I've often remarked to anyone who would listen that robots are becoming more like humans, and humans are becoming more like robots.

When it comes to the latter, nowhere is that more true than in my recent dealings with cashiers, managers, and so-called "customer service" agents at the merged office-supply powerhouse of Office Depot and OfficeMax.

"I do apologize" or words to that effect was the robotic mantra I received literally dozens of times when speaking to company employees on the phone, and in person, about OfficeMax's absolutely asinine corporate return policy, and the company's inability to actually carry out that asinine corporate return policy.

I am writing this as my first step toward recovering from an ordeal that started with the simple task of purchasing a router—a common chore that most of us have done, or will do, in the future. And I confess, however, that I lacked the willpower to refrain from being a jerk to most every OfficeMax employee I dealt with. I plead guilty. I literally could not help myself. I had my reasons. But I do apologize.

Mesh Wi-Fi

I am running an old Airport Extreme router from Apple, and I didn't want to be left out of the new consumer mesh Wi-Fi frenzy that everybody, including Ars, is talking about. I suspected my Airport Extreme was failing, as the signal at my California East Bay residence was intermittently turning my normal connection of 500 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up into a crawl.

After reading several reviews, including one here at Ars, I chose the Velop Whole-Home Mesh Wi-Fi product from Linksys. The single unit was advertised everywhere for $199.99. But OfficeMax had it for $179.99.

The first sign that I should have avoided OfficeMax was the online checkout page. The $179.99 advertised price, when clicking to buy, turned into $199.99. As I was scratching my head about how bogus this was, up popped the site's chatbot. Either a robot or a human robot gave me their name and typed, "It will be my pleasure to assist you today."

Further Reading

The chatbot replied that OfficeMax would honor the $179.99 price. All I had to do was purchase the product online, supply the chatbot with the order number, and the $179.99 price would be honored. I was skeptical but clicked purchase anyway because I was excited about getting a new router—and I could immediately go pick it up at the retail store about a mile from my house.

The $20 difference never showed on my invoice, even after I picked up my new router. So before I unboxed the product, I called the "customer service" phone line. I manipulated through the company's automated answering service that I suspect OfficeMax executives have never experienced or are too embarrassed to admit to having ever used. I finally got a human on the line and loudly explained my situation repeatedly.

"I do apologize" was the agent's response.

The company honored the $20 discount. I said a few more things I should not have said.

"I do apologize," was the agent's reaction.

This was only the beginning of my OfficeMax nightmare.

Take me to your leader

I began to set up my router, and I downloaded the Linksys iPhone app from the Apple App store. I finally got it up and running after several attempts using the app. Despite this setup failure, the app was pretty beast. It gave me all sorts of options, including one to cut Internet to any connected device I wanted. I had great fun secretly cutting off the Xbox connection while my two sons were playing—multiple times. "DAD!"

But such shenanigans weren't worth the $179 price. This router was working no better, and, in fact, was functioning worse than my Apple router. And every time I unplugged it to test it against the Apple router, I had to go through the same initial setup process after powering it back on.

So knowing that OfficeMax had a 14-day return policy, two days later, I packed up the product and drove it back to the OfficeMax where I purchased it.

I waited in line, gave the cashier my receipt, and set the Velop on the counter. After a few minutes of trying to give me a refund, the cashier called over a manager. Because I bought the router online, they said, I couldn't return the product to the store where I picked it up. The manager told me I needed to call their "customer service" number to arrange a courier to come pick it up from my residence.

I haggled for a few minutes, to no avail. I left with everybody in the store's cavernous warehouse hearing about how dumb I thought they were.

I drove the mile's distance home and made the call. After ping-ponging my way through the automated corporate telephone lines again, "I do apologize" was the response I got from the customer service agent after I explained my displeasure with the return policy.

That was on Friday, October 20. The representative said a courier would be over sometime between 8am and 5pm on Monday. After I said I wasn't going to wait at home all day, she said the courier would call to give a closer time window.

"I do apologize."

Monday came and went with neither a pickup nor a call from OfficeMax. So the next morning, I suffered through the corporation's automated phone line again and told my story—again.

"I do apologize."

A courier, I was told, would pick it up between 2pm and 4pm today (Tuesday). My response was unfit to print.

"I do apologize."

Nobody showed.

After suffering through the corporate automated phone line another time, I explained my story—yet again. Somebody, they said, would come Wednesday between 8am and 5pm to pick up the router.

"I do apologize."

I said I might not be there. I was told that I should just brown-box it up and take the product to a UPS store. I responded that I already took it to the OfficeMax store where I bought it and was rejected. So I said I wasn't going to drive it to a UPS store. Come get it was the G-rated explanation of what I said.

"I do apologize."

Later that day, Wednesday, I received a call from OfficeMax saying the package would be picked up not today but sometime between 8am and 5pm Thursday. The G-rated version of my response was the same. They said they'd call before coming to make sure I would be at home.

"I do apologize."

Thursday morning, a courier knocked on the door and picked up the router. I signed for it. I asked for a receipt, but the technology apparently didn't exist to give me one.

About an hour later, I got a call from OfficeMax informing me that a courier would be coming later that afternoon between 2pm and 4pm to pick up the router.

Click.

I’m a dumb Luddite

As it turns out, this entire ordeal could have been avoided in the first place. I was so excited to jump into the mesh-networking game that I committed a grave IT error. What I didn't do was run a speed test directly connected to my Internet provider's modem. Had I done so, I would have realized immediately that it wasn't my Apple router malfunctioning. Instead, it was either Wave Broadband's supplied modem or something else.

As I was waiting for OfficeMax to pick up their router, I called Wave Broadband. The cable guy came out and supplied me with a new modem. My speeds returned to fantastic, and everything was good. But like before, all of a sudden my network returned to a snail's pace. Clearly, there was a larger issue.

A different cable guy returned a couple of days later, ran all kinds of tests, and concluded there needed to be some work done on the telephone pole outside my residence. The next day, the service was performed.

My Apple router is now humming again at monster, Star Trek-like speeds.

All of that said, my business dealings with OfficeMax continued for another week after the courier picked up my return router. That's how long it took for my refund to show up on my PayPal account.

Share this story

David Kravets
The senior editor for Ars Technica. Founder of TYDN fake news site. Technologist. Political scientist. Humorist. Dad of two boys. Been doing journalism for so long I remember manual typewriters with real paper. Emaildavid.kravets@arstechnica.com//Twitter@dmkravets

779 Reader Comments

I had a sales support call where the constant "I do apologize" repeats became so infuriating, I told them that I would press the 0 button on my phone for five seconds if they did it again. It took only two presses to train them to cut that out.

This isn't a tech article, this is a whiny angst driven blog post about how you were a jerk to everyone because of a fault *entirely of your own making*

I've had to return products before. It was never that bad.

Everyone makes purchasing mistakes now and then. That's why companies have return policies. This doesn't strike me as an abuse of that -- I've seen people buy things intending to return them, because they only need the thing for a short time, etc.

And I can certainly understand the impulse to be a jerk to people who are causing you difficulty, although I do my best to tell myself that they, too, are cogs caught in this corporate machine and are probably having a worse day than I'm having.

Bottom line, unless "all sales are final" or some such message is posted, and as long as you're not abusing the policy, you should be able to expect to return items with a minimum of hassle, and it seems as though OfficeMax went out of its way to make that difficult.

This isn't a tech article, this is a whiny angst driven blog post about how you were a jerk to everyone because of a fault *entirely of your own making*

Wanting to return something, for whatever reason, should not be hard provided the returned item is not damaged. And, where I live, failing to honor an advertised discount is illegal. It sounds like there's plenty of blame to go around.

The real moral is, do not buy tech from office supply companies. Buy copier paper and rubber bands from office supply companies. Buy tech from someplace like New Egg.

Wow yeah every step of this saga feels like Office Max telling you they really don't care to keep your business and I'll definitely be hesitant to buy from them in the future!

Whenever I have to refund something involving PayPal it always seems to take forever and the vendors always blame PayPal for that. Not sure if that's just an excuse though - so I'm wondering if your experiences with PayPal refunds have generally been different than this.

I'm with you going after the big bad faceless corporation, but go easy on those customer support reps, whom are most likely slaving away earning $1 or possibly $2 an hour in a packed warehouse phone center in India or the Philippines --- they're just trying to get through the day like everyone else.

I've had customer service, um, problems in the past-- and the thing that works is -extreme- patience. Sooner or later (in my case, six months later), you will find the CSR who knows what she is doing and can (and will) fix your problem. Until that blessed moment arrives, there is nothing you can do, except keep trying.

I had a sales support call where the constant "I do apologize" repeats became so infuriating, I told them that I would press the 0 button on my phone for five seconds if they did it again. It took only two presses to train them to cut that out.

At which point they should have hung up on you. I wonder how many hangups it would have taken to train you not to be obnoxious?

As far as I can see this article's valid complains are: not being able to return the purchase in-store (not great) and the courier boy doing up (this one is unforgivable). Everything else sounds like someone being needlessly rude and not inspiring anyone to do them any favors. You're entitled to be rude when a company screws up, but that doesn't make it nice OR productive. I'm glad this article is here though, since the company should be ashamed of this experience, regardless of the author's being an ass to what sounds like a dozen different employees.

This isn't a tech article, this is a whiny angst driven blog post about how you were a jerk to everyone because of a fault *entirely of your own making*

Possibly, but I appreciate the story as an example of why some (most?) brick and mortar stores are becoming irrelevant. They are unable to act in a rational way and take advantage of the giant warehouse building they occupy.

Edit: to those who (rightfully) noted that this was more of an online store issue, I should have referenced "big box" stores. A chain of this size should be able to provide online and physical services leveraging the benefits of both. They do not. Regardless of the actions of the author, did this story lead me to want to deal with this entity? Definitely not, I will continue to trust local stores or online only.

This comes across as an emotion-driven rant. You should, at the very least, change the title and eliminate the last paragraph, and stick to the facts.

A lot of the facts aren't as appalling as you present them, either. Your credit didn't show up until a week after your return shipment? Why is that a problem? It seems like a perfectly reasonable amount of time between delivery, receipt, routing, verification, and crediting.

Very overwrought, and that undermines whatever value it might have had.

-----

Edit: Note, too, that although laws vary from state to state, stores are generally under no obligation to accept returns in the first place. Return policies are normally a courtesy, not a requirement. It behooves the consumer to make sure they really want/need what they're purchasing - if for no other reason that it will keep them from gumming up the lines for people trying to make actual purchases.

I'm not surprised by your experience given that Amazon has been eating retail for every single meal you can think of. I've noticed office supply stores pulling fast ones where the discount offered shows up as a gift credit card that doesn't work (Staples, I'm looking at you). And terrible customer service on top makes me avoid box office supply stores unless I'm desperate.

This isn't a tech article, this is a whiny angst driven blog post about how you were a jerk to everyone because of a fault *entirely of your own making*

Possibly, but I appreciate the story as an example of why some (most?) brick and mortar stores are becoming irrelevant. They are unable to act in a rational way and take advantage of the giant warehouse building they occupy.

Note that much of the article's angst derives, not from the brick and mortar experience, but from the online side of the company.

As far as I can see this article's valid complains are: not being able to return the purchase in-store (not great) and the courier boy doing up (this one is unforgivable). Everything else sounds like someone being needlessly rude and not inspiring anyone to do them any favors. You're entitled to be rude when a company screws up, but that doesn't make it nice OR productive. I'm glad this article is here though, since the company should be ashamed of this experience, regardless of the author's being an ass to what sounds like a dozen different employees.

You missed the part about the bogus discount. I've learned that patience works better than anger, but having been screwed out of $20 would have left me more than a little crabby before my first encounter with the returns people.

Having been in sales and support, I have to wonder how much more smoothly your experience would have gone, had you tried just a little to not be a volatile asshole taking your frustration out on people who didn’t program the website and don’t make company policy.

And that, dear readers, is why you don't want to work in retail or customer service.

Addendum: And I'm not only talking about customers being... customers, but also uncaring superiors making you carry out out brain-dead policies with inadequate tools, with you being the one to blame for the resulting mess.

And that, dear readers, is why you don't want to work in retail or customer service.

Indeed. Did that years ago, and it was the worst job I ever had, by a wide margin.

Even though I do almost all of my holiday shopping online these days, I still make a point, if I find myself at the mall, to go out of my way to be cheerful and gracious to the staff. They need it even more at that time of year, when the public goes into an irrational, berserk frenzy and starts spraying spittle at clerks in every direction.

At some very early point - maybe at the failure to honor the promised price, certainly by the first failure to show up - this would have been a disputed charge on my credit card and no longer my problem.

This isn't a tech article, this is a whiny angst driven blog post about how you were a jerk to everyone because of a fault *entirely of your own making*

Possibly, but I appreciate the story as an example of why some (most?) brick and mortar stores are becoming irrelevant. They are unable to act in a rational way and take advantage of the giant warehouse building they occupy.

Sounds instead how brick and mortar stores are still relevant. Never had an issue returning something that I bought at a brick and mortar Office Depot. This sounds like the online division being bad...

I’m not usually one for ‘why is this even on ars’ comments, but this one leaves me baffled - I’m pretty sure each and every one of us has customer service stories and this one seems neither novel or indeed particularly egregious.

Things I took away from this ‘article’ :1. The author immediately blames one part of a multi-part system for an error without stopping to check any of the other parts.2. Makes a purchasing decision without checking the terms of the deal he saw, and is annoyed when the salesperson is kind enough to tell him how to receive the deal anyway3. Doesn’t check the terms for returns, is annoyed when the store can’t change those terms just for him and is then a dick about it (and yes it is asinine that the store can’t accept sales of internet returns, but that policy isn’t the store employees fault)4. Proceeds to make his life unreasonably difficult by insisting on a pick-up (and is then a dick about it) rather then just printing a return label and dropping it off at a store at his convenience - and yes, waiting for pickups, service appointments and deliveries is one area where US customer service is fairly uniformly abysmal - is this news to anyone?)5. Is generally a dick to everyone during the entire process and is somehow outraged when they are not all bending over to help him.......

1) Officemax has a few bad policies that are harmful to their customer service.2) The article author is a jerk who interacts poorly with customer service

Where Officemax was in the wrong: any item picked up in a store should be able to be dealt with entirely by that store, including returns and refunds. Requiring courier pickup is just stupid. Also, personally, I never would've purchased the item if the correct price didn't display in the cart, and I would've called instantly if my receipt/invoice price was something other than what I expected.

Where the customer went wrong was yelling and cursing at customer service. He comes off as having anger management issues. With customer service, you should start off friendly and patient, and can escalate to being curt and insistent, but yelling and cursing helps nobody and just makes you look like an ass.

You missed the part about the bogus discount. I've learned that patience works better than anger, but having been screwed out of $20 would have left me more than a little crabby before my first encounter with the returns people.

He got the discount after calling customer service. He cursed customer service out after he got the discount, before he hung up. From the article:

Quote:

The company honored the $20 discount. I said a few more things I should not have said.

That story was really appalling. If Kravets had a real editor supervising his work, or WAS a real editor, he would know better than to post a rant that makes himself look so bad. But this explains why much of the so-called "journalism" on this site is so poor.

Every chain store knows about "demon customers." You, Mr. Kravets, are a demon customer. They are easy to spot, often they are "technologists" who are intent on demonstrating their superior knowledge to low-level store personnel. Most stores will do anything possible to get rid of a demon customer. Office Max did a great job bending over backwards to comply with the unreasonable demands of a demon customer who did everything possible to cost the company as much time and effort as possible.

So permit me to do the job of a REAL editor: I suggest you remove this story before it stays up all weekend and you become even MORE of an object of ridicule.

Sounds instead how brick and mortar stores are still relevant. Never had an issue returning something that I bought at a brick and mortar Office Depot. This sounds like the online division being bad...

It actually sounds like poor corporate structure, where the online division is artificially separated out from the B&M stores. It's not like you ever have to return a store purchase to the exact same physical location.

One thing that's not clear is whether the in-store pickup was same-day, or if it was effectively "ship-to-store," where the store is basically a pickup spot for online shipments. Sometimes this saves the customer the shipping fee, but the store has no involvement with the order other than holding the package until the right person comes in to pick it up.

Companies need to integrate their online and B&M presences better if they want to stay viable in the future. It sounds like Officemax half-assed this, and it's going to be damaging as long as it stays like it is.

I honestly don't understand why Office Max/Depot exists anymore. I was looking for a simple 3 ring binder the other day there - I left after realizing they were more expensive than the ones next door at Target (and about the same quality).

I'm not saying OfficeMax didn't fail on on a number of fronts, but your actions of yelling/berating various people who have no other option than to follow the corporate return policy was plainly wrong.

Their return policy for online items is stated on their website and took me all of 5 seconds to find. You based your actions on how you'd 'like' things to be, not how they actually 'are' at OfficeMax. If you don't like it, write a letter, vote with your wallet (as you say you will do in the future), but don't take it out on staff who are simply following openly available policies in the manner that allow them to keep their job.

I hope your venting on a highly public platform was cathartic, but it wasn't much more than that.

I honestly don't understand why you're being rude to the staff. They're just regular people working a shitty job. You aren't attacking the corporate overlords by proxy by being an ass towards customer service reps, you're just making someone's day a little worse.

Not familiarizing yourself with how returning their online purchases works, before driving to the store and trying to return it, is 100% your own fault. I always look into those things - usually before buying.

Is it rubbish that they don't let you return online purchases to any physical outlet? Yes - many stores let you do this. But that kind of decision is made about 40 tiers above whatever powerless cashier you decided to needlessly antagonize.

The stuff with the courier repeatedly not showing up when they said it would, is unforgivably appalling service, and I'd probably request an explanation for what exactly keeps happening. I'd probably be pretty surly and irritable by the third day of them not showing up, but I also like to make it verbally clear to whoever I speak to on the phone, that I'm angry at the ridiculous situation, not them personally, and that I understand it isn't their fault. Even if it was the fault of one of their call takers, it's highly unlikely you're speaking to the same person.

One thing I will agree about, is that the robotic parroting of "I do apologize" is extremely frustrating, unless it's followed by some additional human-sounding words from then, acknowledging that they understand why you're frustrated by the situation, even if it's beyond their control. Then again, genuine empathy is probably a lot to ask these people for, when their job five days a week is sitting there taking these kinds of calls.